Was Gerry Adams complicit over hunger strikers?

Did five, or even six, of the republican prisoners who were on hunger strike in the Maze prison in 1981 die to advance the political strategy of Sinn Fein?

Did Gerry Adams and other members of the IRA kitchen cabinet snub a conciliatory offer from Margaret Thatcher, then the British prime minister, which met the substance of the prisoners’ demands, just to ensure that Sinn Fein would win a crucial by-election to Westminster?

These are the explosive questions raised for Sinn Fein by papers released to The Sunday Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal that in July 1981, halfway through the hunger strike that claimed 10 lives, Thatcher not only authorised secret communications with the IRA, she was also willing to offer prisoners the right to wear their own clothes and agree to other key demands in defiance of her previous policy.